


The Inventor and The Prodigy

by Little Giant (Destini)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Airbender!Hoshiumi, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Can interpret as romantic or platonic, Developing Friendships, Fluff, HoshiHina Week 2020, M/M, Scientist!Hinata
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26225887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destini/pseuds/Little%20Giant
Summary: Day 1 #HoshiHinaWeek: [Fantasy AU/Jackadlers After Party]Biting his lip, he looks at the wing one more time. What’s so special about the sky? Hoshiumi looks up and sees that it’s a beautiful day—no trace of the invention’s smoke left in the pretty, cloudless blue. It had gone by so fast really, the rush of circling his arms until the plane hovered, him jumping to join Hinata in the makeshift seat, the excited smile they shared. All until every part of Hinata had blended into the atmosphere, eyes reflecting clouds, clothes ruffling in the wind, cold to the touch, laughter stolen by the roar of his engine.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Hoshiumi Kourai, Hinata Shouyou/Hoshiumi Kourai
Kudos: 8
Collections: Destini's Favorites/Recommendations





	The Inventor and The Prodigy

It starts as an innocent question, a genuine curiosity that forms in the front of Hoshiumi’s mind, whirling bigger and brighter and taking up every bit of space until it’s the only concern he’s ever known, eyes blown wide at 50 meters high. The question sits perched on the tip of his tongue, in and out like a cuckoo clock, until he bites down, grinding the hesitation between gritted teeth after he’s finally crashed back to the earth.

“ _Why_ do you want to fly so bad, Hinata-san?”

He stares down at the broken inventor’s face as he holds his equally broken wing, knees scraped where they meet the soft spring dirt. To him the machine looks like junk now, bent in several directions with black running like ink, or maybe blood dripping into pools on the grass. But more than that, Hinata looks far more hurt, his face contorted as he cradles what he could salvage of the white wing that’s now painted with his tears and mud and fire.

He thought Hinata would be grateful to him to still be alive.

“Why do you want to fly so _bad_ , Hinata-san?” he asks again, frustrated when Hinata doesn’t immediately answer, knowing that it’s a ridiculous and loaded question.

Hoshiumi takes a step closer, then back when something crunches underneath his boot. Hinata turns to peel the charred piece of metal from the ground. He doesn’t look at it long before he pockets it, as if it’s just as salvageable as everything else, as if it isn’t garbage.

“Hinata-san?” he says softer, more careful of his steps this time. Hoshiumi kneels next to him and smells blood.

“I just want to see the sky,” Hinata finally says, choking back a sob.

“Why not just get on an air balloon?”

Hinata shakes his head but doesn’t elaborate. His words are never harsh like his, even when they’re blurted out. Hoshiumi stares at the side of his face and wonders just what exactly he thinks of before he speaks. Is it of what’s next? Of what to improve on? Where he’s failed? He hasn’t known Hinata long, but it still frustrates him to not understand. How sentimental is Hinata, really? As he cries over the loss of his invention instead of his almost-death, what is important to him?

Biting his lip, he looks at the wing one more time. What’s so special about the sky? Hoshiumi looks up and sees that it’s a beautiful day—no trace of the invention’s smoke left in the pretty, cloudless blue. It had gone by so fast really, the rush of circling his arms until the plane hovered, him jumping to join Hinata in the makeshift seat, the excited smile they shared. All until every part of Hinata had blended into the atmosphere, eyes reflecting clouds, clothes ruffling in the wind, cold to the touch, laughter stolen by the roar of his engine.

Why isn’t just looking up enough for him? Hoshiumi sighs and forces himself back up. Fine.

“I’ll be back,” he grumbles.

Hoshiumi makes small leaps, each one higher than the last as the wind sends him higher. Many of his colleagues and instructors tell him they feel a surge of energy whipping inside them like a whirlwind until it juts out. They grip air currents as steady as they can, knowing how unstable the air really is. Hoshiumi has never understood them. When he brings forth his powers, he feels boundless—there’s nothing inside him except peace, the wind circling around him respectfully with each step like he’s in the eye of a hurricane. The most useless classes he’s ever been to have always been about control.

There’s no longer the bright glow of fire but he finds it easily enough—the second wing, pathetically crumbled in dirt. He gracefully lands, the wind still encasing him when he lifts a hand toward what’s left of the machine. Thinking of Hinata, he warily lowers his arm and lets the winds turn gentle. They start at the lowest point in the ground, bit-by-bit rushing in the crevices of where wing meets earth, lifting and lifting until it's hovering, balanced on an invisible net.

Slower than he’s used to, they both go flying back to Hinata.

“Here.”

The wind sets the wing down carefully, as if it’s just as salvageable as everything else, as if it isn’t garbage. Hinata wouldn’t think so, anyway.

He blinks, eyes widening when he sees the other half of his pride and joy sitting next to him.

“Ah, thank you so much…”

Hinata grins, blinking back tears, and turns it onto Hoshiumi, who thinks it’s a little much. He folds his arms and rolls on the balls of his feet. “Yeah. What now?”

“I’ll try again,” he says immediately.

Hoshiumi exhales. It’s not a surprise.

“I’ll try again and,” Hinata finally lets go of the wing he’s holding and stands up, knees caked in mud, “this time it’ll work!”

“I bet you say that every time,” Hoshiumi scoffs, a bit of that hopeful smile rubbing off on him.

Hinata nods. “I do. But I have to, I have to keep trying so… It helps to think what I’m doing isn’t a waste. I just have to figure out the winds, I think.”

“Okay…”

Hoshiumi whips his hands toward the two wings and the winds make them hover off the ground. “I’ll go with you; help you bring them back.”

“It’s not too much?” Hinata asks, bending over to look under the machines.

“No. I’m actually a bit of a prodigy,” Hoshiumi grins, puffing out his chest proudly.

“I could’ve guessed that,” he chuckles.

Hoshiumi deflates a bit, confused by the praise and affirmation. Usually people his age hate when he says that. Not that it’s ever stopped him.

“Um. Lead the way, then.”

Hinata does, more spring in his step, although he occasionally pauses across the open field to pick up charred pieces of scrap. Hoshiumi grumbles but finds himself searching, too, tilting his head discretely to whip pieces of scrap into the two balls of wind already carrying the two wings.

“Have you lived in the inner city your whole life?” Hinata suddenly asks, slowing down until they’re walking side-by-side.

“Yeah. Sort of. How about you?”

“No… When I was at the aircraft festival, that was my first time actually inside. It’s really pretty.”

Hoshiumi blinks at him. He’s never considered himself lucky on account of all he had to do to get to this point, but… it can’t be anything else, meeting Hinata like that. Every building in the inner city is like a cathedral, white and imposing, tall for no reason other than to fit more stained-glass windows on their surfaces. The whole place is prone to disaster, if not for the extensive guarding of air and earth users against the natural occurrences of the weather.

Many of his colleagues don’t think people like Hinata deserve to stand in such reverie—people who live on the outskirts, who have real cathedrals and real gods. But they’re wrong about a lot of things. There’s no one who deserves to stand on the precipice of one of those obnoxiously tall buildings more than Hinata, who is a great candidate for worshipping something unearthly, who would be the sky himself if only he’d been born with its powers.

Hoshiumi ignores the looks of the people on the outskirts when they finally enter civilization, steps going from mud to roads and gardens and cobblestone. No one will attempt to steal from Hinata, not with such a renown air user at this side. He hates that it’s even a fear of his.

“Is this where you live?” he asks, when Hinata stops and stares at a particularly small house with a large backyard. Hoshiumi can see the scrap from where they stand on the street.

“Yeah.”

Hoshiumi follows him around the side of the house and drops the wings where Hinata points—on a wooden worktable with dried white paint smears.

“Thank you so much today, Hoshiumi-san. It was nice to have someone with me in the air. Made me feel safer.”

“Right…” Hoshiumi peers around the backyard in awe—he doesn’t know what any of it is, only where some pieces may have originated from. There're parts of a school bus, some broken aircraft engines, and what appears to be a miniature version of a radio tower. How the heck did he find that?

“It’s a bit messy,” Hinata murmurs.

“It’s really… cool.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Hoshiumi awkwardly shuffles. He’s not sure what to do, he doesn’t even know if Hinata _wants_ him here anymore. Relief comes in the form of Hinata leading him back to the street.

“Um. So. Maybe I’ll see you again?” Hinata says, wringing his hands. “I-I’ll be back in the outer city sometimes, but I know you’re busy with all your… air training stuff.”

He’s not wrong, but he’s not quite right either. Hoshiumi stares at the side of Hinata’s face, how he looks back to his yard and how all the gears are already turning.

“You said you needed help figuring out wind, right?”

Hoshiumi gnaws his lip. He’s doing something none of his peers would approve of, nor his teachers at the elite inner-city school of Kamomedai, nor anyone he knows.

“Yes?” he says, eyes curious when they return to him.

“I can… I can help you, I think.”

Hinata, who must not be accustomed to such offers, is tragically stunned. “Help me?”

“Yes,” he nods more vigorously than he intended to, “I can help you! I can control the winds until you figure out a—I don’t know—more scientific way to do it.”

“You want to help me? Why? I thought you didn’t care about flying?”

Hoshiumi stops himself from blurting out something defensive. “Um. Well, you changed my mind. I want to fly now. It’s mutually beneficial!”

Hinata laughs, and after a moment of staring into him, holds out a hand. “If we shake on it, we can be partners.”

“Partners…”

Hoshiumi takes the outstretched hand, warm and rough and dirty, and finds comfort in that he’s the one who made this decision. It’s a path of his own design. Not his instructors, not his parents.

Hinata looks as bright as he did the first day he met him in the city, when he proudly explained to him the inner workings of some air pressure watch he still can’t understand. This boy is still unfathomable, still too sentimental about the most logical things like building engines. Hoshiumi doesn’t know what he thinks any more than he knows why storms surround him if he asks them to. But he looks at the gratefulness on Hinata’s face, how his toothy smile is all sunshine and dimples, and Hoshiumi wonders, hopes, thinks, feels:

Maybe he really _does_ want to fly, if only so Hinata can look like this all the time.

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter post of this fic!](https://twitter.com/OfLittleGiants/status/1300624442289258497?s=20)
> 
> Not necessarily an Avatar: The Last Airbender AU but. sure. if you are so inclined. Oh God I wrote HoshiHina and actually stayed in character (imo) hahhhh HAHHHHHHH???


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